Lake Allatoona Fishing Report June 2012

Allatoona: Level: 0.3 feet above full pool. Temp: High 70s. Clarity: Clear.

Bass: Fair to good. Matt Driver said most of the bass have moved to a summer pattern already. “You can catch them on top early,” Matt said. “Fish are moved out to summer areas, mostly main-lake stuff, and a lot are suspended 15 to 25 feet down over 30 to 40 feet of water. In the mornings I’m running shade for the topwater bite.” Matt said to try a walking-type topwater like a Spro Dawg or Zara Spook, and he mentioned that sometimes later in the morning on the shade pattern a bigger Hydro Pop works well. “Later in the month, the best bite is going to be at night,” Matt said. “I like dark crankbaits, something that runs 12 to 18 feet deep like a Spro Little John DD, and I crank brush and rock near channel swings. Make really long casts, and keep it in that 15- to 18-foot range as long as you can. The fish will move up shallow for short periods of time at night, and you can catch them on a Colorado-blade spinnerbait. I like blue and black. Also, fishing the bluff walls with drop shots is a good pattern for numbers, night or day.”

Linesides: Excellent. Robert Eidson said the bite is “super, incredibly hot” right now on the north end of the lake for huge numbers of hybrids. It’s a summer bite that has already set up, and he is doing nothing but fishing downlines. There are massive schools of hybrids stacked up right at the mouth of Little River, and they are covering the whole area to the mouth of Gar Bay. The fish are in 28 to 37 feet of water, and they are sitting near the bottom. Drop a threadfin or a shiner all the way to the bottom, and give it a half-crank up. This early bite has put more than 30 fish in the boat in just a few hours on recent trips, said Robert. In the evening, there are white bass mixed in with very small hybrids and stripers schooling on the surface from Little River to Fields Landing and then from Victoria to Harbortown. You can catch 100 of them with a Tiny Fluke or a Rooster Tail on 6-lb. test. Downgrade to ultralight gear, and it’s a ball, Robert said. For bigger fish, the stripers have moved south to the main-lake humps and points from Stamp Creek to Bethany Bridge and from Iron Hill to Clark Creek on the Allatoona arm. Keep an eye on your electronics. They’ll be in 28 to 42 feet of water following bait in the water column. You can catch five to 10 in a trip on downlined dollar-bill sized gizzards. Look for those hybrid schools to move to Kellogg and Bartow Carver as dissolved-oxygen levels fall, possibly by late June.